Bubble Meter is a national housing bubble blog dedicated to tracking the continuing decline of the housing bubble throughout the USA. It is a long and slow decline. Housing prices were simply unsustainable. National housing bubble coverage. Please join in the discussion.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The Google Price Index

Google is using its vast database of web shopping data to construct the ‘Google Price Index’ – a daily measure of inflation that could one day provide an alternative to official statistics.

The mix of goods sold over the internet is different to the mix of goods sold in the wider economy.

The work by Google’s chief economist, Hal Varian, highlights how economic data can be gathered far more rapidly using online sources. The official Consumer Price Index data are collected by hand from shops, and only published monthly with a time lag of several weeks.

At the National Association of Business Economists conference in Denver, Colorado, Mr Varian said that the GPI was a work in progress and Google had not yet decided whether to publish it.

While the Federal Reserve is unlikely to panic just yet, Mr Varian said that the GPI shows a “very clear deflationary trend” for web-traded goods in the US since Christmas.

Of course, Google is a big corporation and we know from the Democrats that big corporations can't be trusted. Perhaps we shouldn't trust anyone.

"Of course, Google is a big corporation and we know from the Democrats that big corporations can't be trusted. Perhaps we shouldn't trust anyone. "

Nice snark, but pretty silly. I think we should know from life experience that no person or organization should "be trusted" without verification and evaluation. Not large corporations, not governmental entities and not your private business partners. The fact that democrats and progressives shine a light specifically on large corporations is the large, concentrated amount of power they wield in our political and economic world. If you don't think google would tilt its index in a way it found beneficial to its own interests I have a bridge to sell you.

Did you know that there is already a price index created by ex-Google software engineer available at website Numbeo.com? It's crowedsourced like wikipedia. It might be interesting to your readers as well. Thanks

wow things have changed on this board the over the last 4 years. I havenot been back to this board in a long time. I see people have become much more realistic about home prices and that they need further downside to be affordable.Monthly payments based on interest rates is not a good indicator of affordability. Interest rates can go up then bang losses again.

wow things have not changed at all in the 4 days since I started anonymous sockpuppeting on this blog. I see I can still troll based on my delusional view that "prices have much further to fall", and pass it off as a paradigmatic shift among the general consensus here.

The reality of course is that everyone in their heart of heart knows that the bottom was 18 months ago. But still, thanks to the anonymous nature of this blog, I can troll with no consequences!!!